Skip to main content

Autoscaling

Scaling containers on Cycle is a straight forward process in two parts:

  1. Container Auto-Scaling
  2. Infrastructure Auto-Scaling

Scaled container instances will have an icon next to them showing they've been created from a scaling event. In the example below, containers instances are being stressed through api endpoints that cause either RAM or CPU usage, with thresholds set on both resources.

image

Container auto-scaling is a straightforward set of fields that outline what should happen during a scaling event.

image

Autoscale Group​

This field is set to join a container to a configured auto-scale group.

Window​

The window field represents the baseline time-frame for making scaling decisions.

  • minimum - 5m
  • maximum - 30m

Example: 5m

A 5 minute window means that each time scaling is evaluated, it is evaluated against the average of the previous 5 minutes.

This also means its unlikely that any container will scale between its start time and the configured window time.

Instances​

The instances section covers the minimums, maximums, change vectors, and TTL's.

Min​

The min setting is how many instances minimum this container should maintain at any given time.

Max​

The max setting is how many instances maximum this container can have. A hard ceiling on instances. This setting does not lift as a result of additional infrastructure being deployed, this is the hard limit.

Delta​

The delta is how many container should be created as a result of each scaling event.

Max Instances Per Server​

The maximum number of instances that can be put on any given qualifying server. This is also a hard limit.

Minimum Time to Live​

The minimum amount of time a scaled instance can exist before being subject to a scale down event.

Thresholds​

Thresholds are the settings from which the scaling event decision is derived.

Example CPU Utilization 50%

If any instance of the container is, on average (defined by the average over the time of the window), using more than 50% of the alloted CPU available to it... A scaling event will occur.

CPU Threshold​

CPU threshold is measured by utilization. Utilization is measured by taking current CPU limit / current CPU usage. A display of this value for each instance is shown on the individual instances' dashboard as a percentage.

RAM Threshold​

RAM threshold is measured by actual usage of RAM. The threshold can be set based on the amount of RAM used, but the amount used when calculating the need for a scale event is still the average over the "window'd" period.

Network Throughput​

The network throughput threshold is based on how much traffic is received (as measured in bandwidth) over a given veth interface. There is a private checkbox that when checked will measure traffic over eth-priv, unchecked measures traffic over eth-pub.